The doors of many appliances such as refrigerators, ranges, microwave ovens, etc. typically have a flexible, tubular gasket around their perimeter for sealing and a variety of other reasons. Previously, such doors have been fabricated by joining together front and back pieces. This has enabled the door manufacturers to use gasket assemblies which include a pair of joined, parallel, elongated cylindrical members. One member was then either pushed through a slot or slots provided on the "back" piece of the door or wound around the perimeter of such a back piece which was then fitted into a receiving cavity in the "front" piece of the door. An exposed cylindrical member formed the gasket while a remaining cylindrical member, hidden within the door, held the gasket cylindrical member in place against the door.
The cylindrical members of these gasket assemblies often were formed from a knitted, metal wire tubular cores covered with braided, glass fiber jackets.
There has been a desire on the part of appliance manufacturers to develop a one-piece door construction in such appliances to reduce fabrication costs. Gaskets would have to be attached to such doors from an exterior side using some type of mechanical fastening.
One approach for mechanically mounting such gaskets to one-piece doors has been to provide a flexible, hollow cylindrical gasket with clip-type fasteners protruding along one side thereof. Such gaskets have been formed from a hollow, tubular, knitted wire core and braided, glass fiber outer jacket, somewhat similar to the cylindrical members of the old gasket assemblies. After fabrication, a wire member, bent at several locations along its length to form a series of connected clip members, is inserted into the hollow center of the tubular wire core and the bent portions of the wire pressed through the wire core and surrounding fabric jacket by hand.
There are several drawbacks to such gaskets. First, they require considerable hand labor to assemble. Second, the wire has to be passed through the inner core and outer jacket without damage to either. As a result, the wire used must be fairly thin and the clip portions tend to be easily damaged. Third, because the wire must be inserted into the gasket after the gasket has been made, assembly becomes more cumbersome and difficult as gasket lengths are increased. The fabrication of significant continuous lengths of undamaged, unflawed gasket with the wastage which would be involved would be prohibitively expensive.
In addition to the foregoing limitations, the thin wire which must be used to enable the clip portions to be pressed through such gaskets does not provide a significant spring force for firmly attaching the gasket to the door or other mounting member. Because the thin wire is extremely flexible and does not trap any significant area of the gasket between itself and the door or other mounting member, it does little to prevent the gasket from rolling to either side of the attachment points or bending between the attachment points.
It would be beneficial to provide flexible gaskets with protruding fasteners for mounting to appliance doors and other members which can be attached to the doors or other members as firmly as desired.
It further would be beneficial to provide flexible gaskets with protruding fasteners in which the gaskets do not tend to roll around such fasteners.
It further would be beneficial to provide hollow, tubular gaskets with the aforesaid characteristics for light weight and durability.
It further would be beneficial to provide gaskets and other gasket-like devices with the foregoing characteristics in a form which further includes a plastic and/or rubber outer covering along at least some portion of the device.
It further would be beneficial to provide continuous, elongated gaskets, and gasket-like devices such as molding, etc., with embedded, protruding fasteners which exhibit superior mounting stability.